Possible stuck fermentation on my American Stout

[Dukester]

So I pitched a pretty healthy 1.5q starter into my wort and everything was going like gangbusters for a week, then it started to taper off for a week, and a week later, no activity in the airlock. So I started to prepare for bottling. When I moved the carboy from the dining room to the top of my dryer and started to prep my bottling apparatus, I noticed I was getting steady bubbles through the airlock again. I took the beer thief and drew off a sample and I as about 10 points above my FG. OG at 1.086, FG should be around 1.025 or so. So back into the dining room it went and it kept going for a day or so and now it's stopped. I haven't drawn off another sample yet but I'm wondering if I should and see where it's at. If it's only come down another couple of points, should I pitch a partial vial or just say to hell with it and add the corn sugar and bottle and see what happens?

Cheers,

Dukester

 

[kypher]

Probably not a good idea to say the hell with it. Especially if the gravity is still in the 30 point range. In a bigger beer like that, with the gravity as high to start with, it's not ridiculous to see heavy fermentation for a few days then for it to drop off after the alcohol content goes up. The yeast can get drunk on their own booze. Because of that, I'd say give the yeast cake a bit of a shaky shake and see what's what. After a few days check your gravity again. If after a week or so it's still at the same gravity reading, then fermentation has stopped and you'll have two choices.

1.) Pitch another small bit of yeast
2.) Just bottle and accept a maltier beer.

In an American style your goal isn't necessarily a malty beer, but I suppose you could just tell your friends that it's an "English" beer. =)

 

[h4rdluck]

What was your recipe? and What yeast are you using? 1080+ is a little high for quite a few yeasts...to completely ferment out. Or possibly you are doing extract and adding all the extract at the beggining? This makes for a super malt saturated brew pot and boiling it for an hour will most likely carmalize, burn, scorch many of teh sugars in the pot at such a high gravity unless you are doing some serious stirring the entire boil...

So make sure you are using a proper yeast that can perform in that high a gravity, and consider doing late additions where you only boil with ~2 lbs of malt extract, and add all the rest of your fermentables and everything else in the last 5-10 minutes of the boil

 

[Dukester]

Recipe was a partial mash:

.75lb Crystal 40L
.75LB Chocolate
1lb Black Roasted Barley
9lbs LDME

1.5 oz Magnum at 60
1 oz Centenial at 5

LDME was added in stages starting at 20 minutes with the majority at 10 minutes from flameout. Pitched with a 1.5qt starter of WLP001 which my understanding is pretty tolerant of high alcohol beers.

Cheers,

Dukester

 

[wyzazz]

If you're beer hasn't been in the primary for at least 3 weeks you shouldn't be doing anything with it. Always get a few consistent gravity readings before deciding whether to bottle or not, otherwise you risk bottle bombs!

 

[Dukester]

At the three and a half week mark actually so that wasn't an issue.